Italy’s naughty tourists are at it again. This week, officials in Florence revealed that one “young foreigner” recently caused €5,000 ($5,800) in damage while trying to grope the iconic Neptune fountain in the Tuscan capital’s Piazza della Signoria, the UNESCO World Heritage Site that’s home to the 700-year-old Palazzo Vecchio.
The incident occurred last Saturday afternoon, according to the City of Florence, when a 28-year-old woman in town from an undisclosed country mounted the maximalist fountain’s rim and made her way towards the towering depiction of Neptune, also known as the Biancone, presiding over its center. “Her intention was to ‘touch’ the statue’s private parts as part of a sort of pre-wedding challenge,” authorities reported. Luckily, several officer happened to be nearby, and quickly intervened.
The sculpture was commissioned in 1559 by Cosimo I de’ Medici from Italian architect Bartolomeo Ammannati and famed Flanders-born Mannerist Giambologna, to mark the marriage between his son Francesco de’ Medici and grand duchess Joanna of Austria. The resemblance between Cosimo I, a maritime maven, and the Roman god of the sea is palpable.
On Monday, specialists from the Fabbrica di Palazzo Vecchio, the body responsible for maintaining the Palazzo Vecchio, assessed the naked Neptune. During their inspection, crews discovered damage on the legs of a horse that the reveler had climbed in her bid to stay dry while accomplishing her raunchy dare. Experts found further damage on a frieze that she’d clung to as well.
Two horses on the Neptune fountain in Piazza della Signoria, Florence. Photo via Getty News.
The City of Florence has not yet answered a request for further details about the nature of these purportedly “minor but significant” damages. The offender, meanwhile, has been reported to the city’s judicial authority for the defacement of an architectural and artistic heritage site. This week’s release emphasized that she remains “presumed innocent until a final judgment is rendered.”
Unfortunately, this is hardly an isolated incident. European leaders—especially those situated in Roman history-rich Italy—are increasingly at a loss regarding how to defend their critical relics against overtourism and dangerous stunts staged for photo-ops or social media. Last June alone, a car got stuck on Rome’s famed Spanish Steps, someone selfie-ed too close to a painting at Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, and a tourist crushed a Swarovski-crusted chair at the Palazzo Maffei museum in Verona.